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    Scottish History: A Concise Overview of the History of Scotland From Start to End
    Scottish History: A Concise Overview of the History of Scotland From Start to End
    Scottish History: A Concise Overview of the History of Scotland From Start to End
    Ebook114 pages2 hours

    Scottish History: A Concise Overview of the History of Scotland From Start to End

    By Eric Brown

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    Explore the History of Scotland From Start to End...


    Are you interested in the romance and drama of Scottish history?


    Are tales of Robert the Bruce and the wars against England just footnotes in your wider historical knowledge?


    This book provides a concise and impressive chronicle!


    Scotland has always held a fascination for people around the world. from inventors and patriots to great writers and thinkers, Scotland has traditionally punched well above its weight on the world stage. But did you know how it all started and how Scotland has been shaped by wider world events?


    This book, Scottish History: A Concise Overview of the History of Scotland From Start to End, tells Scotland's story through several hundred years of turmoil and strife and includes chapters on:


    The emergence of the Scottish nation


    The golden ageThe Wars of Independence


    The Black Death


    Inventors, explorers and missionaries


    The impact of two world wars


    And much more…


    This in-depth and informative book aims to give the reader a taste of what Scottish history has meant for it, the United Kingdom as a whole and for the rest of the world as a result. It is perfect for anyone who has an urge to learn more about what Scotland has done throughout the years!


    Don't wait another moment to enjoy from this information – Get your copy of Scottish History right away!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMark Williams
    Release dateApr 5, 2019
    Author

    Eric Brown

    Twice winner of the British Science Fiction Award, Eric Brown is the author of more than twenty SF novels and several short story collections. His debut crime novel, Murder by the Book, was published in 2013. Born in Haworth, West Yorkshire, he now lives in Scotland.

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      Book preview

      Scottish History - Eric Brown

      holder.

      Introduction

      The very idea of Scottishness is inseparable from an opposition to Englishness. England’s influence on its northern neighbor after it became the most powerful political force in the British Isles by 1100 cannot be understated. However, Scotland has long insisted on being a separate country on a shared island. Historical fact and myth have been resolutely channeled into the creation of a distinct national identity over the centuries.

      For the majority of human history, however, there was no Scotland, Wales, Ireland, or England to speak of.[2] Scotland is derived from the Latin Scotia, which means land of the Scots.[3] The Scots were a Celtic people of Irish origins who decided to settle on the west coast of Great Britain during 5th century AD. The people who inhabited Scotia, which only meant the entire kingdom north of England during Alexander II’s reign, were certainly not monolingual or monocultural. As the Scottish language slowly became the lingua franca of the entire nation, it had to coexist with Celtic, Gaelic, and Norwegian. 

      Before a national identity was forged through the trauma of invasion and years of painful resistance, local, regional, and dynastic identities and affiliation had more meaning and relevance to everyone’s daily lives. When roads and advanced technologies for communication did not exist, everyone’s existence was rooted in their immediate surroundings. Identities were formed based on the specific physical geography that individuals, families, and clans found themselves in. Scotland’s terrain is mostly rugged and subject to weather extremes, but this challenging landscape also possesses a striking beauty and the capacity to facilitate the evolution of a fiercely unique culture.

      Scottish folklore has perpetuated the idea that the Scots have never been conquered. The Scots have certainly fought bravely against conquest from various foreign powers, but they also have a mixed track record. It is true that the Romans eventually abandoned their attempts to conquer Scotland (which was then known as Caledonia) and decided to simply build walls to keep the barbaric tribes up north from attacking them. In the tenth century, the Scots managed to fend off a Danish invasion, but only with English aid. This dependency meant that the English ruler could define himself as father and lord of the king of Scots.

      Chapter 1: Medieval Strife

      Robert VII was born on July 11, 1274, probably at Turnberry Castle in Ayrshire. His parents had met and married the previous year on his father's return from crusade after Robert VI brought Marjorie news of her husband's death on that same military campaign. Though it was a politically advantageous marriage, bringing together a family of grand title and one of great power, it seems to have been motivated by love. Young Robert was the first of eleven children - five sons and six daughters - who would between them come to include a King of Scotland, High King of Ireland and Queen of Norway.

      As noble families went, the Bruces were something of a powerhouse. Robert Bruce was a descendant of both the Gaelic nobility native to Scotland and the Anglo-Norman nobility that had become increasingly powerful in Scotland since the Norman conquest of England in 1066. Like many nobles of the period, he was descended from royalty, in his case King David I of Scotland, to whom he was connected on his father's side. First becoming established in Scotland in the early 12th century, the Bruces had come to dominate the southwest of the country, becoming one of the most powerful magnate families.

      In fact, the future King Robert was one in a long line of men named Robert Bruce - alternatively Robert de Brus or Robert de Bruce, in the shifting spellings and naming conventions of the period. His grandfather and head of the family was Robert Bruce V, Lord of Annandale, the family's traditional base of power. His father, Robert Bruce VI, had married the widowed Marjorie, Countess of Carrick, and so become Earl of Carrick. This made him technically superior in rank to Robert V, but the Lord of Annandale remained leader of the Bruces.

      There is little record of Robert VII's early years, and much of what we know comes not from direct accounts but from deductions based on his later life. It seems that he spent time with a foster family, a traditional practice among the Gaelic aristocracy, in which noble children would live for a while with another family, creating strong and lasting bonds of loyalty based on something other than blood. In keeping with a family that followed this tradition, he spoke Gaelic, the native language of the Highlands and western Scottish, as well as French - the language of the Norman-descended aristocracy - and Lowland Scots, which had evolved from a dialect of northern English. On top of these languages, he was taught Latin, the language of scholarship, the church, and much international diplomacy. He learnt to read and write, common but by no means, universal skills among the aristocracy of the period, and later in life had books with him even while on the run. Perhaps the most important things he learnt were how to ride and how to fight, vital skills for a member of Europe's military aristocracy. That he was an able learner is demonstrated by his later battlefield prowess.

      In 1286, at the age of 12, the young Robert acted in an adult capacity for the first time, when he was among the nobles witnessing a deed. It was the same year as the death of King Alexander III, an event that would propel Scotland into turmoil.

      The English and Scottish monarchies had a complex relationship from the start. Both emerged from alliances and conquests of smaller kingdoms during the Dark Ages. By 1100, England had a stable established central monarchy, which could assert authority over all of what now consists of the whole of England. The Kings of the Scots, on the other hand, were still struggling to dominate their supposed subjects in the north and west. Wales, the other portion of the island of Britain, had some sense of shared identity but a multiplicity of kings and princes who would periodically gain dominance over each other. In retrospect, it is possible to see that these nations had already established the outlines that would endure down the centuries, but at the time this could not be taken for granted.

      One of the biggest issues was the feudal relationship between England and Scotland's monarchs, because it was not clear whether the King of Scots ruled as an independent king or as a sub-king of England, and neither side had sought to clarify this issue legally. For the Scots, to assert their complete independence would be to tempt English invasion, and for the English, it could stir up trouble to the north. Though their borders were frequent causes of dispute, and war erupted from time to time, relations in the mid-13th century were relatively stable.

      In some minds, the relationship between the English and Scottish monarchies had been resolved in 1189 with the Quitclaim of Canterbury. Under this agreement, Richard I, more interested in funding his crusades than ruling in Britain, sold any English crown interests in Scotland for 10,000 marks. In reality, however, these matters could not be so smoothly settled because the ownership of lands by noble and royal families often changed down the generations, which meant many nobles held lands on both sides of the border. In the ever-shifting feudal landscape, there was no guarantee that such an agreement would not be surpassed by some other pact or marriage.

      During the relatively weak reign of Henry III of England, Alexander II of Scotland gave up a Scottish claim to disputed Northumberland in return for holding Penrith in Cumberland as a lordship under the English monarch. Alexander III, who inherited the Scottish throne in 1249, gave homage to Henry III for Penrith, but this exchange of a disputed claim for real lands, far from resolving the relationship between the two kingdoms, added to its complexity. The King of Scotland was now clearly a vassal of the King of England, at least in his role of Lord of Penrith.

      When Edward I became King of England in 1272, he sought to use this to his advantage by asserting that Alexander III should swear fealty to him due to his holdings as Lord of Penrith. Clear authority over his barons was very important to Edward, who had seen the English nobility rise up against his father in the 1260s and believed that an assertive approach was

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